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Shadow and Shade

"I stayed up all night finishing Shadow and Shade, a fascinating fantasy world of magic, family, and what happens when the two collide. A tough and enchanting tale that will have you listening to the forest and talking to the wolves. I can't wait to see what Gerrard writes next!" Rebecca Cantrell, New York Times bestselling author of The World Beneath

Hogwarts vs the Gentlemen

I was thinking about how almost every spell you ever read about in the Harry Potter books require an incantation, and thought of the Gentlemen in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: smiley, polite, horrifying creatures that steal voices and then steal human hearts to keep themselves alive. Would the Gentlemen be the nemesis of the Hogwarts wizards and witches?

Nicely done!

For the acid test, set the stage at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone, the night after the children have been sorted into their houses. The Gentlemen steal the voices of everyone in the castle, and by virtue of dark magic are able to pass freely through the castle’s wards and detection spells. Since Hagrid doesn’t sleep inside the castle, his voice was not stolen.

My take on this is that the Gentlemen will steal at least one heart in the general confusion of not knowing where they are and having too much ground to protect. That said, while most spells in the Harry Potter universe use incantations — not to mention the old “swish and flick” of a magic wand — Harry himself, at age 7, makes a pane of glass disappear without even thinking about it. It stands to reason that a wizard would be trained to do more. That said, we’ve only seen it a few times, from Dumbledore and Snape.

I predict that Hagrid will have every magical creature he can lay his hands on roaming the castle grounds as impromptu guard dogs. One or two hearts will be stolen, but a few of the Gentlemen and their imps will go down in fights with teachers, students, or Hagrid’s pets. Hagrid even gets to cast a spell or two to fight some of them off. The story ends with Harry, Ron and Hermione surrounded by Gentlemen in the Forbidden Forest. Hermione points at the voice box — she read about the Gentlemen in one of her books — Ron knocks it open, and Harry screams, saving the day.